Coronavirus

[phart]

Tabby has a new interface, good to see

Vaccinated

18,644

0.34% of Scotland

[exile]

Seems to me they tried to tie down a 4 nations approach too early, and too much following the more laissez-faire attitude of the UK Govt. Now it is hard from them to backtrack from that.

I really don't understand why the Scots Govt allowing themselves to get so far entangled in the 4 nations approach.

No matter how there are some advantages to a common approach (family travel across the UK), they must know they will get absolutely no quarter given if all goes pear-shaped.

Both Scots Tories and Labour bang on about every flaw and process followed in Scotland, even if it is one done across '4 nations' and their own Tory & Labour Govts doing the same or worse in England and Wales.

[phart]

90-year-old Margaret Keenan, who received the milestone vaccination in Coventry this morning, spoke of her joy at being finally able to see her family in the new year, after purchasing over £3,000 worth of Microsoft products in just minutes after the injection.

Speaking earlier she revealed, “I feel absolutely great, this is a fantastic feeling.

“But not as great as you will feel if you sign up to an amazing Microsoft Office deal with a new Windows 10 home digital download package and a new Microsoft Surface, which is way better than an iPad.

https://newsthump.com/2020/12/08/first-vaccine-patient-margaret-keenan-strangely-compelled-into-shopping-spree-for-microsoft-products/

[Saint4805]

I get that this is easy to say in hindsight but as soon as they announced three households over a five day period my initial reaction was that it was far too loose and generous. Yes cases have surged since but they should have expected that given what happened in the US after Thanksgiving not to mention the fact that Jan and Feb are invariably busy months for the NHS. It's another bad misjudgement from top brass which is causing mass confusion and disruption. Two households meeting on one day only within a three day range (say 24-26 December) would have made more sense to me. 

Edited December 17, 2020 by Saint4805

[aaid]

My area has just gone into tier 3 in England.  TBH, for me it won't make much of a difference, however, we were in tier 2 before the recent lockdown, came out into tier 2 but which had much more restrictions in place than before lockdown and after a couple of weeks we're into tier 3 from Saturday.   Clueless doesn't even come close to describing whats going on.

[Orraloon]

29 minutes ago, aaid said:

My area has just gone into tier 3 in England.  TBH, for me it won't make much of a difference, however, we were in tier 2 before the recent lockdown, came out into tier 2 but which had much more restrictions in place than before lockdown and after a couple of weeks we're into tier 3 from Saturday.   Clueless doesn't even come close to describing whats going on.

Based purely on the numbers (I know it's more complicated than that) I think London and some other parts of south England should have been in tier 3 a while ago. I'm predicting a full lockdown (probably including Scotland) after xmas. 

 

[phart]

30 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

Based purely on the numbers (I know it's more complicated than that) I think London and some other parts of south England should have been in tier 3 a while ago. I'm predicting a full lockdown (probably including Scotland) after xmas. 

 

20 days after thanksgiving so the deaths maybe not even from that yet

 

[Saint4805]

22 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

Based purely on the numbers (I know it's more complicated than that) I think London and some other parts of south England should have been in tier 3 a while ago. I'm predicting a full lockdown (probably including Scotland) after xmas. 

 

What is interesting is that last month's four week national lockdown in England made no difference whatsoever to case numbers in London. The main reason for this?........schools remained open. There are far too many carefree irresponsible teenagers who are acting as if life is normal. No masks, no social distancing and that is probably the tip of the iceberg. 

I really feel sorry for people working in hospitality and retail who are losing there jobs and there seems to be little or no regard for their economic situation or mental health. If they want a post Christmas lockdown to really work then they should consider closing secondary schools for the first week or two of January and switch to online learning - this would make a huge difference and wouldn't impact kids' education significantly. It's hard to believe that they are keeping schools open until the very last minute before Christmas when everyone knows the last few days are more relaxed. 

 

 

[aaid]

1 hour ago, Orraloon said:

Based purely on the numbers (I know it's more complicated than that) I think London and some other parts of south England should have been in tier 3 a while ago. I'm predicting a full lockdown (probably including Scotland) after xmas. 

 

Don't get me started on "the numbers".  In October, before the National Lockdown when we were in tier 2, the local council was lobbying hard to get us into tier 3.   This included one Tory councillor who has some sort of background in pharmaceutics and has been seconded onto one of the UKG taskforces, claiming blue in the face that things were bad and we needed to go up a tier - and generally giving the big "do you know who I am" to any constituents who had the temerity to question him.

Turns out that a month or so later it became apparent that the numbers were bogus and were being inflated by students testing positive at university but those case being recorded under their parent's rather than term time addresses.

Then you have the decision in England to go into the lockdown which was predicated - amongst other things - by ONS figures showing an almost doubling of cases in England in the space of a couple of weeks.   When they went back to revise these estimates later, guess what, the rise was much smaller and more linear.

[Hertsscot]

2 hours ago, Saint4805 said:

What is interesting is that last month's four week national lockdown in England made no difference whatsoever to case numbers in London. The main reason for this?........schools remained open. There are far too many carefree irresponsible teenagers who are acting as if life is normal. No masks, no social distancing and that is probably the tip of the iceberg. 

I really feel sorry for people working in hospitality and retail who are losing there jobs and there seems to be little or no regard for their economic situation or mental health. If they want a post Christmas lockdown to really work then they should consider closing secondary schools for the first week or two of January and switch to online learning - this would make a huge difference and wouldn't impact kids' education significantly. It's hard to believe that they are keeping schools open until the very last minute before Christmas when everyone knows the last few days are more relaxed.

Looks like we might get that as schools in England are going to be the target of mass testing in the new year and as per normal the Government  has made the announcement so late that schools  can't prepare, so it looks like at least some students will be being taught remotely in the first week back.  I reckon we had two thirds of our pupils absent today and had more sent home due to a year 7 student testing positive.  Yet we still go in tomorrow - absolutely nuts, makes no sense at all.

[Orraloon]

1 hour ago, aaid said:

Don't get me started on "the numbers".  In October, before the National Lockdown when we were in tier 2, the local council was lobbying hard to get us into tier 3.   This included one Tory councillor who has some sort of background in pharmaceutics and has been seconded onto one of the UKG taskforces, claiming blue in the face that things were bad and we needed to go up a tier - and generally giving the big "do you know who I am" to any constituents who had the temerity to question him.

Turns out that a month or so later it became apparent that the numbers were bogus and were being inflated by students testing positive at university but those case being recorded under their parent's rather than term time addresses.

Then you have the decision in England to go into the lockdown which was predicated - amongst other things - by ONS figures showing an almost doubling of cases in England in the space of a couple of weeks.   When they went back to revise these estimates later, guess what, the rise was much smaller and more linear.

Does that mean they were students in London but being recorded as being elsewhere, or the other way round?

[aaid]

4 minutes ago, Orraloon said:

Does that mean they were students in London but being recorded as being elsewhere, or the other way round?

Say a student who is from Maidenhead - where I live - goes to university in say Liverpool and tests positive, then - depending on where that student was registered, or specifically where Test and Trace system thought they were registered then that could have counted against numbers in Maidenhead and not Liverpool as they should've done.

There's literally zero residential student population here as there's no colleges or universities, the only students would be those who live at home and commute, yet we saw an apparent spike in numbers at the point when universities went back, which has now been traced back to this problem with registration.

 

[Saint4805]

20 minutes ago, Hertsscot said:

Looks like we might get that as schools in England are going to be the target of mass testing in the new year and as per normal the Government  has made the announcement so late that schools  can't prepare, so it looks like at least some students will be being taught remotely in the first week back.  I reckon we had two thirds of our pupils absent today and had more sent home due to a year 7 student testing positive.  Yet we still go in tomorrow - absolutely nuts, makes no sense at all.

Nuts as you say. The Secretary of State for Education Gavin Williamson is a poisonous snake and a useless buffoon who should be nowhere near Government. How he and Preeti Patel are in the cabinet is beyond me. 

I see that the UK Government are now calling it 'NHS Test and Trace' which means when anyone dares to slag off their 'world beating system' they can simply turn around and accuse them of criticising the NHS. Another way of shirking responsibility. 

 

Edited December 17, 2020 by Saint4805

[fringo]

40 minutes ago, Saint4805 said:

Nuts as you say. The Secretary of State for Education Gavin Williamson is a poisonous snake and a useless buffoon who should be nowhere near Government. How he and Preeti Patel are in the cabinet is beyond me. 

I see that the UK Government are now calling it 'NHS Test and Trace' which means when anyone dares to slag off their 'world beating system' they can simply turn around and accuse them of criticising the NHS. Another way of shirking responsibility. 

 

How any of the cabinet are in any cabinet is beyond me.☹️

[Caledonian Craig]

Time for a laugh...

[Och Aye]

Am I missing something here. The chancellor announces in the middle of December he's extending furlough til end of April. I got end of March as it's virtually end of the financial year. Then they suddenly add on a month. Are they expecting all of us to be vaccinated by 30th April? 

[phart]

[phart]

 

[aaid]

1 hour ago, Och Aye said:

Am I missing something here. The chancellor announces in the middle of December he's extending furlough til end of April. I got end of March as it's virtually end of the financial year. Then they suddenly add on a month. Are they expecting all of us to be vaccinated by 30th April? 

No, I suspect that if things haven't gone back to a level of whereby furlough isn't required by the end of March it'll just roll over for another month and will keep rolling over until its no longer required.

[Orraloon]

2 hours ago, Och Aye said:

Am I missing something here. The chancellor announces in the middle of December he's extending furlough til end of April. I got end of March as it's virtually end of the financial year. Then they suddenly add on a month. Are they expecting all of us to be vaccinated by 30th April? 

No. Nowhere near it.

[bonzo]

Did I just see @jimberson the BBC news talking about covid and Christmas?

[min]

1 hour ago, bonzo said:

Did I just see @jimberson the BBC news talking about covid and Christmas?

The feature is about 28:15 in on iPlayer. Unmistakable. 

[bonzo]

14 minutes ago, min said:

The feature is about 28:15 in on iPlayer. Unmistakable. 

Aye, watched it again definitely him 😄

[phart]

Seems to be a hint of a lot of stuff happening quickly regarding a real surge in cases in parts of England, nothing coming out of official channels though, yet.

[TDYER63]

15 hours ago, bonzo said:

Aye, watched it again definitely him 😄

Earlier this year I was walking past Central Station on the way to the gym looking like a bag of shit. I got stopped by a guy with a mic who asked me if I would mind answering a question. I thought it was a survey about Scotrail, it wasnt, it was about a controversial announcement made that day by the UK government, but I still answered the question and walked on.

Just after 9pm I started getting texts from friends . Unbeknown to me it was the bloody TV that had asked the question , and I was on The Nine. I nearly died. I honestly was mortified. I cant think how bad the rest of the pedestrians must have been if they chose to put me on.